


The Great Plague of '98

by LunaDeSangre



Series: Between the Lines [4]
Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8923888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/pseuds/LunaDeSangre
Summary: In which almost all of them are sick, and Ryan O'Reily really hates Miguel Alvarez.Or: In which almost all of them are sick, but none more so than Ryan O'Reily – whom Miguel Alvarez thinks makes a hilariously entertaining patient.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because there's nothing that helps as much, when you're sick as dog, to write about someone else being at least just as sick.

Em City's barely reopened that there's some kind of influenza epidemic running around Oz. The Sicilians are the only ones immunes besides the infirmary guys – whom Dr Nathan provided with masks, gloves and preventive meds as soon as the outbreak started to avoid loosing half of her staff – and they all keep swearing up and down nobody would be sick if they all ate raw garlic cloves. Schibetta in particular is particularly annoying, though Ryan would cheerfully punch Pancamo's face in too, if he could, just for being so damn smug and so damn _healthy_.

Beecher is one of those lucky fucks not sick enough to be stuck in an infirmary bed, and he takes to violently and gleefully cough in the face of every nazi he sees, and cheerfully reports who he's gotten that day to Ryan every time he visits. Adebisi's walking around with long bits of tissue stuffed up his nose (during one particularly nasty bout of fever, he'd leant over Ryan to say hi, and Ryan had thought he was a walrus), still on kitchen duty despite not being any less sick than Beecher. He swears he doesn't cough in Ryan's food, and Ryan's not too sure he believes that, but he can only stomach yoghurt, water and sometimes fruit anyway – everything else just makes him throw up. Violently. As if the fever, chills, diarrhea and never-ending coughing weren't bad enough.

Said, who's been settled in the bed across Ryan two days ago, spends a really suspicious amount of time in that praying position of his. Ryan's come to the conclusion it must be because it's the only one that unglues the phlegm from the back of his throat, but Said keeps insisting he's praying so everyone'll get better. Considering he fell asleep like that this morning, snoring and all, and only woke up to violently cough out a huge glob of phlegm that missed his carpet by inches, Ryan rightfully doesn't believe him.

He'll take any kind of entertainment he can get though. He's been here two weeks – one of the first guys this badly infected, and still the worse one off of the entire joint. At this point, he's having vengeful, feverish dreams about wringing the neck of whoever got this into the prison every night and half of the day, and has murderous impulses every time he sees a healthy person. They're probably all lucky he can't even hold his plastic spoon on his own, much less actually _stand_.

There's nobody he hates more these days than Miguel Alvarez though, who keeps spoon-feeding him that damn yoghurt and piece after piece of whatever fruit Adebisi's brought with little encouraging phrases, like Ryan's his goddamn baby. _And_ fucking stroking his (admittedly longish) hair while he makes Ryan gulp down water. _And_ all but carrying him to the toilet, only waiting right behind the door (with an always-renewed threat of bursting said door open if he so much as hears a thunk or Ryan doesn't immediately answer him) because Ryan keeps making it perfectly clear the only way Alvarez'll get to wipe his ass will be if he's _dead_.

Then there's the sponge baths. _Nobody_ should be happy to sponge-bath another guy, and especially not happy enough to fucking _whistle_. But Alvarez fucking _does_. Ryan growls and bitches at him all the way through, every damn time (which is every damn day, which is at least _twice as many_ sponge baths than the others really sicks fucks are getting, which is _not fucking fair_ ), and Alvarez just fucking grins and smiles and makes encouraging sounds. He keeps saying the only way Ryan's getting a real shower is if he doesn't fucking faint in Alvarez's arms every time he tries to stand up, and even then, it'll only be with Alvarez right there with him under the spray, just in case. To which Ryan growls, every damn day, that he does not fucking _faint_. And especially not _in Alvarez's fucking arms_ – but it just makes the cocky bastard fucking _grin_.

If he doesn't get better soon, and get out of here, Ryan's sure he'll just end up pulling a Beecher and fucking _bite him_ – though not on the dick, obviously, _ewww._ Unless Alvarez starts sharing whatever the fuck he's on that has him so goddamn cheery all the goddamn time, because Ryan might just grow to tolerate being treated like a fucking doll then.

Well, _maybe_.


End file.
